Re: Littleton - violence in media

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Wed, 16 Jun 1999, DEVARAKONDA VENKATA NARAYANA SARMA wrote:

> WORTH THINKING ABOUT:  VIOLENCE AND THE MEDIA
>      The recent school-shooting tragedy in Littleton, Colorado, has sparked
> a wide-ranging debate about the role played by TV, movies and video games
> in fostering a climate of violence.

What I've yet to see is lots of articles about sports-worshipping
highschool culture, and the treatment suffered by students who dare to get
good grades, or worse, become interested in the sciences.

Me, I was a total Nerd and outcast during my school career, and had
occasional violent fantasies regarding jocks and popular cliques.  High
school is often hell, yet we behave as if this is OK since its always been
that way.  I suspect that the Littleton murders have more to do with
outbursts of *acting* on violent desires, and less to do with the presence
of those desires.  American schools are not innocent, and if we focus on
video games, it keeps us from looking at things we prefer not to examine.
The current high teen suicide rate suggests that many kids have a reason
to ignore the consequences of any violent acts.  Perhaps the video games
simply give them vengeful ideas, when "normally" they would not think to
killing anyone else before killing themselves.  Teen suicides are never
discussed, only murder/suicides cause a commotion.  (As long as kids only
kill themselves, schools and society need not be altered, right?)

One possible solution: eliminate sports from school.  Seriously.  I've
always wondered what would happen if we raised a generation of
"cooperators", rather than constantly pushing competition and zero-sum
games, and trying to create predators who think that the world is not made
of people, but is made of "winners" we must follow, and "losers" we must
hate.

  - Bill "recovered victim of highschool" Beaty